More than a month later, new team president Stan Kasten said the Dodgers intend to be "big” when it comes to making the personnel decisions that would allow that return to prominence to happen. And two weeks ago, new chairman Mark Walter said taking on money at the trade deadline wouldn’t be a hindrance to improving the roster.

“We’re feeling good as an ownership group,” partner Magic Johnson said. “As a player, when you know the ownership is making the necessary moves to win a championship, that’s a big boost.”

Those three trades happened without the Dodgers sacrificing their top two prospects, pitchers Zach Lee and Allen Webster, although that is also the reason they lost the staredown with the Chicago Cubs over righthanded starter Ryan Dempster. Still, it was smart to keep depth in the minors rather than spend a prized arm on a two-month rental. Considering the current NL landscape, it looks like Colletti did a fine job of improving his club over the past week.

“Getting that starter would have been, I don’t know, it would have made their day golden,” an NL scout said. “But even without that, they did pretty well for themselves. If those guys perform up to expectations, they are much better than they were two weeks ago.”

Victorino, who went from Dodger farmhand to despised enemy because of his playoff performances against Los Angeles in 2008 and 2009, will give the Dodgers much-needed production out of the leadoff spot and in left field (he also gives the team two natural center fielders). Considering the Dodgers were getting a .221/.279/.276 slash line from the top spot in their lineup, Victorino’s .261/.324/.401 line through Monday is a major upgrade.

With Ramirez (owed $38.5 million), Choate ($574,000), League ($1.8 million) and Victorino ($3.3 million) on the payroll, Los Angeles has added about $44 million in salary in the past week. It’s the sort of financial risk never allowed under former Dodger owner Frank McCourt. During that regime, Colletti could make only lateral deadline moves in terms of finances. Adding to the bottom line wasn’t an option as McCourt worked to shed payroll and made the team less competitive as a result.

Times have certainly changed; Guggenheim Baseball Management couldn’t have distanced itself any further from McCourt than it did during its first trade deadline.

The deftness with which the Dodgers moved—beginning with the trade for Ramirez to solidify the middle of their order, continuing with the deal for League to help the back of their bullpen and ending with the addition of Victorino—forced the rest of the division to react.

In New York Yankees-Boston Red Sox fashion, the San Francisco Giants countered the Dodgers’ acquisition of Ramirez by trading for Phillies right fielder Hunter Pence. The Giants’ ownership had reservations about adding to the payroll but had no choice but to act—or risk a serious backlash from the fan base that made the team’s $118 million-plus opening day payroll possible.

This kind of wheeling and dealing was more reserved for other divisions in previous seasons, not the NL West.

Before this summer, squads in the West used to be able to win the division with a Zooey Deschanel kind of payroll (maybe $80 million or even lower). What the Dodgers have done is force the rest of the West to upgrade to Kate Upton levels, more in the posh neighborhood of the other nine-figure elites.

As the Dodgers refused to budge in the Dempster negotiations, they looked at other starter options. When none of those came to fruition, they unsuccessfully looked for even more bullpen help. That they missed on those arms isn’t the point, though, at least not in the long-term picture.

“They did what they said they were going to do,” center fielder Matt Kemp said. “Now we have to show they were right to believe in us.”

The Dodgers wanted to make a splash this season. They talked about it in the spring. They were all about it in the summer. And it is all so they can gloat about it in the fall.